<p>I tend to agree that most of the “chance me” threads aren’t very helpful–especially when it’s “chance me for Harvard.” However, I do think that threads that focus on “how’s my list look?” can be helpful. They can give a reality check, help a student find other schools that might be a good fit, and remind him or her to craft a list with reaches, matches, and safe schools.</p>
<p>If the Op is a regular here, he also knows an overwhelming majority of posters here advise strongly against ED. Applying ed severely limits the options one has of college choices, unless of course money is no object.
As for the menatal health TwistedX referred to, it has been shown here that Harvard claims 60% of its student seek help for mental health issues.
Some think that’s good; some don’t.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS that this is a great resource for parents, not so much for kids. My daughter has never looked here and rolls her eyes when I talk about some of the issues discussed here. She comments that CC isn’t reflective of the real world and it’s not - it’s a bubble. I feel that too much pressure is put on many of the young folks here to go HYPS to the point where they feel like a disappointment if they can’t or don’t want to. Stellar kids who can do amazing things at any school they attend.</p>
<p>I agree wholeheartedly with Pizzagirl when she says
“true “high performance” in the real world involves many other qualities, including getting along with people, emotional maturity and creativity”</p>
<p>Imo only, there is a value to much of the information here if you can sift through some of the attitudes of superiority.</p>
<p>CC is for parents not students. I know mine wouldn’t read this site. She often made fun of me and CC.</p>
<p>On “chancing”:</p>
<p>Some institutions do publish clear information on who will be admitted based on their stats (usually public institutions, and even then usually only for in-state candidates). Some institutions are open admission (most public community colleges fall in this category). For all of the other institutions, there is at least one human admissions officer with discretionary power to decide Yes or No. Unless that individual is the one “chancing” you, you cannot expect an accurate estimate of your likelihood of admission. To believe otherwise is to live in fantasy-land. The chance threads are the dumbest feature of CC.</p>
<p>On “review my list please”:</p>
<p>As mentioned above, this is much more useful. The community’s collective experience related to admissions at multiple institutions, and suggestions of similar campus environments can be helpful for students who have overweighted their lists. It also gives the grown ups one more chance to say “Find a Safety that you can love”.</p>
<p>On “where can I get financial aid”:</p>
<p>Boy I have I learned a lot by reading the Financial Aid forum and the Parents forum! If there were one thing I could change about CC, it would be to require that everyone click through Financial Aid on their way to wherever else they are going. Maybe they’d even stop and read some of the threads that answer their questions so the same questions don’t get asked a bazillion times. Maybe they’d start to believe this information so that they take to heart the “Find a Financial Safety that you can love.” message, and so that none of us would ever have to read another “How am I going to pay for X college now that I’ve been admitted?” thread.</p>
<p>On “what is the best exam prep?”:</p>
<p>Why oh why isn’t the Xiggi method stickied at the top of that forum?</p>
<p>On <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/319650-say-here-cause-yo-cant-say-directly-get-off-your-chest-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/319650-say-here-cause-yo-cant-say-directly-get-off-your-chest-thread.html</a> :</p>
<p>Best thread ever. Can’t give up CC because of this thread alone.</p>
<p>My D recognizes CC for what it is: An addiction. And since she already has other addictions, she doesn’t come here.</p>
<p>I prowl the site a lot, looking for little bits of information that I pass on to her, at the right time.</p>
<p>I do think that this is a good place to get a reality check.</p>
<p>I should qualify my statement above that CC isn’t good for kids by saying that I think it can be really valuable for getting a sense of what specific colleges are like, what makes them special, what the students there like or dislike about them. There are other sources for that information, too, but CC is a good one.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some of that comes interwoven with a type of thread that is even stupider than “Chances” threads: “Rank the Ivies”. Talk about misinformation! 15-year-olds, with no basic concept of what a university is, dissing Cornell! Yeah, right . . . .</p>
<p>I think CC is neither intimidating nor discouraging but rather a very useful web site if you know how to use it.</p>
<p>I think each college forum has very good information. There are some regulars who post there - current students and alums. The way they communicate with each other (and prospects) is a fairly good indication what the student body is like.</p>
<p>I think that in the aggregate young people are more optimistic about their chances of acceptance at top colleges than they ought to be. I think CC does a service by throwing a bucket of cold water on some of these kids’ plans. </p>
<p>After all, there is no harm done if the kid does get into “Dream College.” Giving the acceptance rates, though, the odds are that a majority of the kids on this board applying to HYPSMC will be rejected. If someone can make that point and it causes the kids on this board to pay more attention to their safeties and matches, then I think the board performs a great service. </p>
<p>Having followed results here for more years than I ought to have, I can tell you that every spring there are kids who are unhappy with the choices open to them. There are parents who have never discussed the financial facts of life with their kids and refuse to let them attend MIT or NYU or some other college which accepted the applicant but gave him/her lousy financial aid. Again, if this board makes parents more realistic about how much aid they can expect from need blind schools, and that causes them to have a discussion about money when there’s still time to add some other colleges to the application list, I think that’s worthwhile too. </p>
<p>So, frankly, I’m not particularly worried about the few kids–and I assure you they are few–who have the right to say the equivalent of “naya naya naya you said I wouldn’t get in and I did, so there!!!” I’m more worried about those who applied to Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Duke, Cornell, Georgetown, Columbia, Brown, Penn,Dartmouth, Northwestern and their flagship state u. because they were convinced that if you just apply to lots of top colleges, you’re sure to get into one. They come crying in April saying that they don’t want to go to their state U and asking why they worked so hard if they are going to end up going to the same college and the kids from their high schools who had more fun and studied less. </p>
<p>So, while I hope the OP gets into his ED school, I’d urge him to get a few more apps filled out and ready to go before he knows the results–just in case. It’s hard if you do get deferred–there’s still hope right?–to focus on other apps by the deadline.</p>
<p>And before I get flamed, state U may be-depending on the state–a great option. I’m just talking about the kids who don’t think it will be and are upset about going there.</p>
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<p>Best post of the year.</p>
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<p>I have no problem in principle with the idea of people “chancing” each other. Of course they’re all chancing themselves already. The request for others to join in is basically just a way of seeking peer validation for what one sees in one’s self. It can provide useful information, pointing out holes or potential problem areas in one’s credentials, for example, that may be more obvious to a neutral observer than to one’s own self-assessment. Many kids are overly optimistic about their prospects at the most selective schools; others are unduly pessimistic. Peer feedback can help reel in expectations.</p>
<p>The problem I have with the “chance me” threads is that so much of the chancing is done by other HS kids who have no real experience in college admissions, and who in many cases propagate myths and misinformation. For example, there’s a prevalent myth on CC that despite what the colleges themselves say and abundant statistical evidence to the contrary, elite colleges really “prefer” the SAT to the ACT. But that kind of misinformation circulates in many places on CC, not just the “chance me” threads.</p>
<p>I think in general CC can be a useful tool, but what you read here needs to be taken with a heavy dose of skepticism. It’s not all true. Some is misleading, some just downright false, and it’s not always easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.</p>